Gendo clutched his bleeding head, pushing mangled strips of steel off him as he stood. In awe of Unit-01's amazing destructive power, he glanced around the hanger, now blackened by soot, and stained with blood. Flames crackled and people sobbed and screamed from the other side of the thick smokescreen, but one noise crested them all in importance- a child's sobbing. Then he remembered what happened.

"Yui!", he shouted, running down the catwalk, leaping over rubble and gaps while trying to ignore the squelching noises that occasionally came from his feet. With the smoke lightening as he got closer to the crying, he saw the gargantuan purple-armoured humanoid leaning against the steel wall, which was crumpling under its immense weight. The dim white light emanating from the motionless god's eye-lenses seemed to focus on a young boy, standing next to its fist.

The young brown-haired boy's eyes were brimming with tears as he stared at the big robot that had took his mother from him. Gendo too, stared at the God-machine that he and so many others had struggled to make. Now his life's work had taken that which he most loved from him.

He couldn't go on, could he? He had lost her...it was too painful for him. Nor could he even bear to look at his son, who reminded him so much of Yui. It would hurt, but if Gendo wanted to continue the Artificial Evolution Project, he would need to send little Shinji away, so that he is not distracted by the pain.

Would Yui want that?

Gendo jolted at the thought. Telepathy! Frantically looking around, he found nobody capable of doing such a thing, and NERV-HQ was warded from the inside against such happenings.

"Oh...fuck." A man, older than Gendo, with his black hair slowly receding into grey, limped to his side, clutching his own side, which was soaked in his blood. "Someone'll need to tell the old men."

Gendo stared at his feet for a few moments, before replying, "You do it, Fuyutsuki.", while taking his labcoat off. Holding the blood-soaked and soot-stained garment in his hands, he walked beside his son, wrapping the boy in the coat and lifting him. The boy, instinctively, buried his head in his father's shoulder, still crying.

Gendo smiled sadly at the boy. "I have a son to take care of, Fuyutsuki."